

Copyright N° ^ 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 





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POEMS BY 

MAURICE MAETERLINCK 


THE WORKS OF MAURICE MAETERLINCK 

ESSAYS 

The Treasure of the Humble 

Wisdom and Destiny 

The Life of the Bee 

The Buried Temple 

The Double Garden 

The Measure of the Hours 

Death 

On Emerson, and Other Essays 

Our Eternity 

The Unknown Guest 

PLAYS 

Sister Beatrice and Ardiane and Barbe 
Bleue 

JOYZELLE AND MONNA VANNA 
The Blue Bird, a Fairy Play 
Mary Magdalene 

PELLEAS AND MELISANDE, AND OTHER PLAYS 
Princess Maleine 
The Intruder, and Other Plays 
Aglavaine and Selysette 

HOLIDAY EDITIONS 

Our Friend the Dog 
The Swarm 

The Intelligence of the Flowers 
Chrysanthemums 
The Leaf of Olive 
Thoughts from Maeterlinck 
The Blue Bird 
The Life of the Bee 
News of Spring and Other Nature 
Studies 
Poems 



Poems 


BY 

MAURICE MAETERLINCK 


Bone into English Verse 

BY 

BERNARD MIALL / 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
1 9 1 5 



Copyright, 1915 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 


The right to reproduce these poems or to set them to music is re- 
served by the translator , and application must be made to him 
through Mr. Paul R. Reynolds , of 70 Fifth Avenue , New York. 


APR -8 1915 


©C/.A398261 

^- 0 >» 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 9-17 

HOT-HOUSES: 

The Hot-House 21-22 

Prayer 23 

The House of Lassitude 25 

Temptations 27-28 

The Bell-Glasses 29-31 

The Humble Offering 33 

The Heart’s Foliage 35 

A Fevered Soul 37 

The Soul 39-41 

Lassitude 43 

The Weary Hunting 45 

The Passions 47 

Prayer 49 

Stagnant Hours 51 

The White Birds 53 

The Hospital 55-58 

Night Prayer 59-60 

Wintry Desires 61 

Listlessness 63 


5 


Contents 


HOT-HOUSES — Continued. page 

Amen 65-66 

The Diving-Bell 67-70 

Aquarium 71-72 

The Burning-Glass 73 

Reflections ...» 75 

Visions 77 

Prayer 79 

Glances 81-84 

Vigil 85 

Afternoon 87 

The Soul 89 

Intentions 91 

Contacts 93-97 

Night 99-100 

FIFTEEN SONGS: 

I She Chained Her in a Cavern Frore 103-104 

II If He One Day Come Again . . . 105-106 

III Three Little Maids They Have Done 

to Death 107 

IV Maidens with Bounden Eyes . . . 109 

V The Three Blind Sisters . . . . m-112 

VI There Came One Here to Say . .113-114 

VII Orlamonde Had Seven Daughters . . 115 

VIII She Had Three Crowns of Gold . . 117 

6 


Contents 

FIFTEEN SONGS — Continued. page 

IX Toward the Castle She Made Her 

Way 1 19-120 

X Her Lover Went His Way . . . . 121 

XI Mother, Mother, Do You Not Hear? 123-124 

XII Now Your Lamps Are All Alight . 125-126 

XIII Sisters, Sisters, Thirty Years . . . 127 

XIV There Were Three Sisters Fain to 

Die 129-130 

XV Canticle of the Virgin 131 


7 


Et torpenti multa relinquitur miseria . — De Imitatione . 



TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 

I 

Once in a generation an author surpasses 
the bounds of nationality. Of such cosmo- 
politan artists Maurice Maeterlinck is per- 
haps the most shining example. Twenty 
years ago I was vainly endeavouring to in- 
terest English publishers in his plays. To- 
day I am asked to produce a version of one 
of his earlier and less familiar works, be- 
cause the time is approaching for that 
monument to his fame which so few writers 
enjoy in their lifetime — the complete edi- 
tion. Maeterlinck is not a Belgian writer 
merely or chiefly; above all he is an Eng- 
lish, an American author. His readers in 
England and the United States far out- 
number those who read the original French. 
His books are published in England and 


9 


Translator’s Preface 

America almost as soon as they appear in 
France and Belgium, and in at least one 
case the English publication was the earlier. 
More and more do his lovers demand every 
word that his pen has formed. Sooner or 
later, therefore, it was inevitable that these 
Poems should appear in translation. 

II 

The poems contained in this volume 
form part of a movement long defunct — 
the Belgian Symbolist movement, an off- 
shoot of that Belgian renascence which 
produced so remarkable a body of great 
and noble poetry. I cannot say, however, 
that the perusal of the other poets of the 
period will assist the reader to appreciate 
the volume in hand. Eekhoud, Elskamp, 
Gilkin, Rodenbach, Verhaeren — none of 
these wrote verse which could possibly be 
confounded with that of Maeterlinck; 


Translator's Preface 

twenty years ago the latter was no less 
original than he is to-day. 

Many poets of the late nineteenth cen- 
tury were, without being symbolists, af- 
fected by the Symbolist movement — a 
movement very loosely named, since the 
actual symbolists connected with it could be 
counted on the fingers of one hand. More 
particularly were they influenced by the 
tendency to put music before matter, beauty 
before sense, which is expressed by the so 
familiar lines of Verlaine: 

De la musique avant toute chose , 

Et pour cela prefere V Impair, 

Plus vague et plus soluble dens V air, 

Sans rien en lui qui pese ou pose . . . 

De la musique encor et tou jours! 

But musical as Maeterlinck’s verses are, 
and rich in sheer beauty, we are very sel- 
dom in doubt as to what the poet says, how- 


Translator’s Preface 


ever little we may in some cases understand 
what he means. His statements are con- 
crete and lucid; it is the inner meaning, the 
soul of his verse, that sometimes threatens 
to elude us. Had this volume been cast 
upon the late Victorian world, this preface 
would perhaps have been longer. But I 
cannot believe that these poems will pre- 
sent any difficulties to a generation which 
has degustated such phenomena as Cubism 
and its kindred manifestations. 

Ill 

It is safe to assert that the writer of these 
poems had read his Verlaine, his Rimbaud, 
his Mallarme and his Baudelaire, and, of 
English-speaking poets, Blake, Poe, Emer- 
son, perhaps Rossetti, and above all, Whit- 
man. But he is no disciple : and his essen- 
tial originality, and the keynote of his 
aesthetics, is a system of symbolism. 


12 


Translator’s Preface 

Now here at once we are on dangerous 
ground. When a poet makes use of a sym- 
bol it is because that symbol enables him 
to say something that he cannot say so well, 
or so beautifully, or perhaps at all, in plain 
language. He is a rash man, therefore, 
who will attempt to elucidate another’s sym- 
bolism. However, I have already been 
rash, in venturing to translate, not a few 
selected lyrics, but an entire volume of 
verse from cover to cover, than which there 
is no more appalling task in literature. 
But I am not therefore going to court dis- 
aster by attempting any detailed or posi- 
tive explanation. I could, indeed, have 
asked M. Maeterlinck for such, but at the 
moment of writing his country is being cru- 
cified by the powers of darkness, and he has 
other and sterner matters to think of. 

This machinery of hot-houses, bell- 
glasses, hospitals, and what not — what are 


13 


Translator’s Preface 


we to make of it? I do not think we shall 
go far wrong in supposing the hot-house, 
the bell-glass, the diving-bell, the hospital, 
to typify that isolation and insulation which 
is caused by a false civilisation and an un- 
real religion, so productive of hypocrisy, 
fear and confusion that each man is a pris- 
oner within himself, unable to reach his fel- 
low. And the inmates of the hot-house — 
the strange growths, the fantastic visions, 
the violent antitheses and incongruities — 
these, we may take it, are the morbidities 
fostered by a life which protects us and 
them from the agencies by which Nature 
makes her own children perfect in strength 
and beauty and service. That is my read- 
ing of it; the reader is perfectly free to dif- 
fer from me, and will lose little by so doing 
if I have succeeded in preserving a tithe of 
the original beauty of the verse. 

If here and there — more particularly in 


14 


Translator’s Preface 

the unrhymed pieces — the violent and in- 
tentional incongruities and antitheses seem 
startling and incomprehensible, and a little 
apt to tickle the risibility of the frivolous 
Anglo-Saxon, let us remember that to read 
a symbolic poem literally is as foolish as to 
seek for a cipher in Shakespeare, or to set 
about interpreting a melody in terms of its 
notation, in the hope of spelling out a 
message. 

One peculiarity of Maeterlinck’s which 
may at first confuse the English reader is 
only a simple convention. All poetry is full 
of similes; the simile confuses no one. If 
a poet tells us that his heart is like a sing- 
ing-bird, we do not seriously suppose him 
to mean that his heart has feathers and 
two legs ; but merely that it possesses some 
other essential quality of a singing-bird. 
Now, Maeterlinck constantly, in his verse, 
uses what is merely a modification of the 


is 


Translator’s Preface 


simile, and which has precisely the same 
significance, but which takes the form of a 
positive assertion of identity. He would 
say : My heart is a singing-bird, or a plant 
in a green-house, or anything else that 
seemed to be illuminating; and this appar- 
ent literalness of statement, which is car- 
ried very far, is, and must always be un- 
derstood as, a mere variant of the familiar 
simile. 

IV 

A word as to the work of translation. 
Most of the lyrics in Sevres Chaudes are 
written in the metre familiar to English 
readers as that of “In Memoriam.” It is, 
in English, rather a dull metre, the stanza 
being in reality no stanza at all, but merely 
a line of thirty-two syllables with interior 
rhymes. It is greatly improved and en- 
livened by the omission of four syllables, 
or, rather, by their replacement by pauses 

1 6 


Translator's Preface 

of one syllable’s value. This change I have 
sometimes made; and in one case I have, in 
order to avoid a verbal obscurity, extended 
the line to ten syllables. Apart from these 
exceptions, all the poems in this volume are 
translated into their original metres, and 
it has always been my first object to pro- 
duce a literal, almost a word for word 
translation. Whatever the faults of my 
version, it is strictly faithful. If I am 
deemed to have also preserved something 
of the beauty of the original, I shall feel 
more than rewarded for a task that has 
presented many difficulties. 

Bernard Miall. 


Ilfracombe, N. Devon, September , 1914. 


17 


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I 


HOT-HOUSES 


And in his hand a glass which shows us many more. 

— Shakespeare. 


THE HOT-HOUSE 


O hot-house deep in the forest’s heart ! 

O doors forever sealed ! 

Lo, all that lives beneath thy dome, 

And in my soul, and the likeness of these 
things ! 

The thoughts of a princess who is sick with 
hunger, 

The listless mood of a mariner in the 
desert, 

And brazen music at the windows 

Of men who are sick to death ! 

Seek out the coolest corners — 

And you think of a woman who has 
swooned on a day of harvest. 

Postillions have entered the courtyard of 
the hospital, 

And yonder goes an Uhlan who has turned 
sick-nurse. 


21 


The Hot-house 


Behold it all by moonlight ! 

(Nothing, nothing is in its rightful place!) 

And you think of a madwoman haled be- 
fore the judges, 

A warship in full sail on the waters of a 
canal, 

Birds of the night perched among lilies, 

And the knell of a passing-bell at the mid- 
day hour of Angelus. 

And yonder — beneath those domes of 
glass — 

A group of sick folk halted amid the 
meadows, 

An odour of ether abroad on the sunny air ! 

My God, my God, when shall we feel the 
rain 

And the snow, and the wind, in this close 
house of glass? 


22 


PRAYER 


0 pity me that wander hence 
To haunt the precincts of intent; 

My soul is pale with impotence, 
Colorless and indolent. 

A soul for action all too weak, 

Pallid with tears, it vainly heeds 

The weary hands that idly seek 
To grapple with abortive deeds. 

Forth from my slumbering heart exhale 
The purple bubbles of its dream ; 

My soul, with waxen hands and frail, 
Pours forth a drowsy lunar gleam, 

A listless light that dimly shows 
The faded lilies of days unborn ; 

A languid light that only throws 

The shadows of those hands forlorn. 


23 






THE HOUSE OF LASSITUDE 

O blue monotony of my heart ! 

Blue with languor are my dreams, 
When the mournful moonlight seems 
Clearer vision to impart : 

Blue as is the house of shade, 

Close within whose lofty green 
Casements whose pellucid screen 
Seems of crystal moonlight made, 

Mighty vegetations rise, 

Whose nocturnal shadow deep, 

Silent as a charmed sleep, 

Over passion’s roses lies; 

Where slow-rising waters gleam, 

Mingling moon and heaven, and throb 
In one eternal glaucous sob, 
Monotonously as in a dream. 


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TEMPTATIONS 


Green as the sea, temptations creep 
Thro’ the shadows of the mind, 
Where with flaming flowers entwined 
Dark ejaculations leap — 

Stems obscure that coil and thrust 
In the moon’s unhallowed glow, 

And autumnal shadows throw 
Of their auguries of lust. 

And the moon may hardly shine 
Thro’ their fevered fast embrace : 
Limb and slimy limb enlace, 

Emerald and serpentine. 

Sacrilegiously they grow, 

And their secret will reveal, 

Dismal as regrets that steal 
O’er men dying in the snow; 


27 


Temptations 

And their mournful shadows hide 

Tangled wounds that mark the thrust 
Of the azure swords of lust 
In the crimson flesh of pride. 

When will the dreams of earth, alas, 

Find in my heart their final tomb? 

O let Thy glory, Lord, illume 
This dark and evil house of glass, 

And that oblivion nought may win ! 

The dead leaves of their fevers fall, 
The stars amid their lips, and all 
The viscerae of woe and sin ! 


28 


BELL-GLASSES 

O domes of crystal! 

O curious plants forever sheltered, 

While the wind stirs my senses here with- 
out ! 

A valley of the soul forever undisturbed ! 

O humid warmth at noon ! 

O shifting pictures glimpsed in the crystal 
walls ! 

Never lift one of these ! 

Some have been set on ancient pools of 
moonlight. 

Peer through the prisoned foliage : 

There you may see a beggar upon a throne, 

Or maybe pirates, lurking upon a pond, 

Or antediluvian beasts about to invade the 
cities ! 


29 


Bell-Glasses 

Some have been set on ancient drifts of 
snow, 

And some on pools of rail? long fallen. 

(O pity the imprisoned air!) 

I hear them keeping Carnival on a Sabbath 
in time of famine, 

I see an ambulance in the midst of the fields 
of harvest, 

And all the king’s daughters, on a day of 
fast, 

Are wandering through the meadows ! 


Mark more especially those on the horizon ! 

Carefully they cover the tempests of long 
ago. 

Somewhere, I think, you will see a great 
armada, sailing across a swamp ! 

And there the brooding swans have hatched 
a nest of crows ! 

(It is hard to see through the veil of 
moisture.) 


30 


Bell-Glasses 


And a maiden is watering the heath with 
steaming water, 

A troop of little girls is watching the her- 
mit in his cell, 

And I see my sisters asleep in the depth of 
a poisonous cavern! 

Wait until the moonlight, wait until the 
winter 

Shall cover these domes of crystal set amid 
ice and snow! 


31 



THE HUMBLE OFFERING 


I bring my piteous work, in form 
Like the dreaming of a corse, 

And the moon illumes the storm 
O’er the creatures of remorse. 

There the purple snakes of dream 
Writhing twine till sleep be done; 
Crowned with swords, my longings gleam ; 
Lions whelmed in the sun, 

Lilies in waters desolate, 

Clenched hands that may not move, 

And the ruddy stems of hate, 

’Mid the emerald woes of love — 

Lord, pity our mortal speech! 

O that my prayers, morose and dim, 
And the dishevelled moon may reach 
And reap the night to the world’s rim ! 


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THE HEART’S FOLIAGE 


’Neath the azure crystal bell 
Of my listless melancholy 
All my formless sorrows slowly 
Sink to rest, and all is well ; 

Symbols all, the plants entwine : 

Water lilies, flowers of pleasure, 

Palms desirous, slow with leisure, 

Frigid mosses, pliant vine. 

’Mid them all a lily only, 

Pale and fragile and unbending, 
Imperceptibly ascending 
In that place of leafage lonely 

Like a moon the prisoned air 

Fills with glimmering light wherethro’ 
Rises to the crystal blue, 

White and mystical, its prayer. 


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THE FEVERED SOUL 


The dark brings vision to mine eyes : 

Through my desires they seek their goal. 
O nights within my humid soul, 

O heart to dreams that open lies ! 

With azure reveries I bedew 
The roses of attempts undone ; 

My lashes close the gates upon 
The longings that will ne’er come true. 

My pallid indolent fingers plant 
Ever in vain, at close of day, 

The emerald bells of hope that lay 
Over the purple leaves of want. 

Helpless, my soul beholds with dread 
The bitter musings of my lips, 

Amid the crowding lily-tips : 

O that this wavering heart were dead! 


37 



THE SOUL 


My soul ! 

O my soul, verily too closely sheltered ! 

And the flocks of my desires, imprisoned in 
a house of glass! 

Waiting until the tempest shall break over 
the meadows ! 

Come first to these, so sick and fragile: 

From these a strange effluvium rises, 

And lo, it seems I am with my mother, 

Crossing a field of battle. 

They are burying a brother-in-arms at 
noon, 

While the sentinels are snatching a meal. 

Now let us go to the feeblest: 

They are covered with a strange sweat. 

Here is an ailing bride, 

And a treacherous act, committed upon a 
Sabbath, 


39 


The Soul 


And little children in prison, 

And yonder, yonder through the mist, 

Do I see there a woman, dying at the door 
of a kitchen, 

Or a Sister of Charity shelling peas at the 
bedside of a dying patient? 

Last of all let us go to the saddest: 

(Last of all, for these are venom’d.) 

Oh, my lips are pressed by the kisses of a 
wounded man ! 

In the castles of my soul this summer all the 
chatelaines have died of hunger! 

Now it is twilight on the morning of a day 
of festival ! 

I catch a glimpse of sheep along the quays, 

And there is a sail by the windows of the 
hospital. 

The road is long from my soul to my heart, 

And all the sentinels have died at their 
post ! 


40 


The Soul 


One day there was a poor little festival in 
the suburbs of my soul : 

They were mowing the hemlock there, one 
Sunday morning. 

And all the maiden women of the convent 
were watching the vessels passing, 

On the canal, one sunny fast-day. 

But the swans were ailing, in the shadow of 
the rotting bridge. 

They were lopping the trees about the 
prison, 

They were bringing remedies, on an after- 
noon of June, 

And in every quarter there were sick folk 
feasting! 

Alas, my soul, 

And alas, the sadness of all these things ! 


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LASSITUDE 


These lips have long forgotten to bestow 

Their kiss on blind eyes chiller than the 
snow, 

Henceforth absorbed in their magnificent 
dream. 

Drowsy as hounds deep in the grass they 
seem; 

They watch the grey flocks on the sky-line 
pass, 

Browsing on moonlight scattered o’er the 
grass, 

By skies as vague as their own life caressed. 

They see, unvexed by envy or unrest, 

The roses of joy that open on every hand, 

The long green peace they cannot under- 
stand. 


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THE WEARY HUNTING 


My soul is sick, in evil mood; 

Stricken with many a lack it lies, 

Stricken with silence, and mine eyes 
Illume it with their lassitude. 

Arrested visions of the chase 

Obsess me; memory whips them on; 
The sleuth-hounds of Desire are gone 
On fading scents — a weary race. 

In misty woods the hunt is met; 

The questing packs of dreams depart; 
Toward the white stags of falsehood 
dart 

The jaundiced arrows of regret. 

Ah, my desires ! For breath they swoon ! 
The weary longings of mine eyes 
Have clouded with their azure sighs, 
Within my soul, the flooding moon! 


45 



THE PASSIONS 


Narrow paths my passions tread: 
Laughter rings there, sorrow cries; 
Sick and sad, with half-shut eyes, 
Thro’ the leaves the woods have shed, 

My sins like yellow mongrels slink; 
Uncouth hyaenas, my hates complain, 
And on the pale and listless plain 
Couching low, love’s lions blink. 

Powerless, deep in a dream of peace, 
Sunk in a languid spell they lie, 
Under a colourless, desolate sky, 
There they gaze and never cease, 

Where like sheep temptations graze, 
One by one departing slow: 

In the moon’s unchanging glow 
My unchanging passions gaze. 


47 




PRAYER 


A woman’s fears my heart control : 

What have I done with these, my part, 
My hands, the lilies of my soul, 

Mine eyes, the heavens of my heart? 

O Lord, have pity on my grief : 

I have lost the palm and ring, alas ! 

Pity my prayers, my poor relief, 

Cut flowers and fragile in a glass. 

Pity the trespass of my mouth, 

And things undone, and words unsaid, 
Shed lilies on my fever’s drouth, 

And roses on the marshes shed ! 

O God! The doves whose flights are gold 
On heavens remembered ! Pity too 
These garments that my loins enfold, 

That rustle round me, dimly blue ! 


49 




STAGNANT HOURS 
Here are the old desires that pass, 

The dreams of weary men, that die, 
The dreams that faint and fail, alas! 

And there the days of hope gone by! 

Where to fly shall we find a place? 

Never a star shines late or soon : 
Weariness only with frozen face, 

And sheets of blue in the icy moon. 

Behold the fireless sick, and lo ! 

The sobbing victims of the snare! 
Lambs whose pasture is only snow! 

Pity them all, O Lord, my prayer! 

For me, I wait the awakening call: 

I pray that slumber leave me soon. 

I wait until the sunlight fall 

On hands yet frozen by the moon. 


si 



THE WHITE BIRDS 


Proud, indifferent, slow, they have fled, 
they have flown away, 

The peacocks white as snow, lest weari- 
ness awake; 

I see the birds of snow, the white birds of 
To-day, 

The birds that fly away before my slum- 
ber break; 

Proud, indifferent, slow, the white birds of 
To-day, 

Winning with indolent flight the shores 
of the sunless lake ; 

The birds of listless thought, I hear them 
on their way, 

Indolently waiting for the sunless day to 
break. 


53 




THE HOSPITAL 


The hospital! 

The hospital on the banks of the canal, 

The hospital, and the month July ! 

They are lighting a fire in the ward, 

While the Atlantic steamers are whistling 
on the canal ! 

(Do not go near the windows!) 

Here are emigrants loitering through a 
palace, 

And I see a yacht in a tempest ! 

And herds of cattle on all the ships ! 

(It is better to keep the windows fastened, 

Then we are all but safe from the outside 
world ! ) 

One thinks of a forcing-frame placed upon 
a snow-drift, 


55 


The Hospital 

Or a woman being churched on a day of 
thunder; 

One catches a glimpse of plants scattered 
upon a blanket, 

And a conflagration on a sunny day, 

And I pass through a forest full of 
wounded men. . . . 

O, here at last is the moonlight ! 

A fountain is playing in the middle of the 
ward! 

And a troop of little girls has opened the 
door! 

And lo, a glimpse of lambs in an isle of 
meadows ! 

And beautiful plants on a glacier! 

And lilies in a hall of marble ! 

There is a banquet in a virgin forest, 

And the vegetation of the tropics in a cav- 
ern of ice ! 


56 


The Hospital 

Listen ! They are opening the locks, 

And the ocean steamers are churning the 
. waters of the canal ! 

But see, the Sister of Charity is making up 
the fire! 

All the lovely green rushes of the banks are 
in flames 

And a boat full of wounded men is tossing 
in the moonlight ! 

All the king’s daughters are out in a boat in 
the storm! 

And the princesses are dying in a field of 
hemlock ! 

Oh, do not unfasten the windows ! 

Listen — the ocean steamers are still hoot- 
ing on the horizon ! 


57 


The Hospital 

They are poisoning some one in a garden ! 

They are holding a splendid festival in the 
houses of the enemy! 

There are deer in a beleaguered city ! 

And a menagerie in a garden of lilies ! 

And the jungle of the tropics in the depths 
of a coal-mine ! 

A flock of sheep is crossing an iron bridge ! 

And the lambs have come from the mead- 
ows and are mournfully entering the 
ward! 

Now the Sister of Charity is lighting the 
lamps ; 

Now she is bringing the patients their 
supper, 

She has closed the windows upon the canal, 

And all the doors to the light of the moon ! 


NIGHT PRAYER 


Below the somnolence of prayer, 
Under languid visions I 
Hear the passions surge and cry: 
Lust with lust is warring there. 

Thro’ the lassitude of dreams 
Shines the moon as thro’ a mesh; 
And the wandering joy of flesh 
Still on pestilent beaches gleams. 

Under ever-shrouded skies, 

Thirsting for their starry fires, 
Thro’ my veins I hear desires 
Toward the green horizon rise. 

Evil fondnesses I hear 

Blackly surging through my mind. 
Phantom marshes vanish blind 
Sudden on the sky-line drear. 


59 


Night Prayer 

O Lord, thy wrath will slay me soon : 

Have pity on me, Lord, I pray ! 
Sweating and sick, O let me stray 
Thro’ pastures glimmering in the moon. 

For now, O Lord, the time is nigh 
To rase the hemlock with the steel, 
Whose moon my secret hopes reveal 
Green as a serpent in the sky ; 

And the plague of dreams mine eyes 
Smites, and all its sins subdue, 

And the rustling fountains blue 
Toward the sovereign moon arise. 


60 


WINTRY DESIRES 


I mourn the lips of yesterday, 

Lips whose kisses are yet unborn, 

And the old desires outworn, 

Under sorrows hid away. 

Always rain on the far sky-line ; 

Always snow on the beaches gleams, 
While by the bolted gate of dreams 
Crouching wolves in the grasses whine; 

Into my listless soul I gaze : 

With clouded eyes I search the past, 

At all the long-spilt blood aghast 
Of lambs that died in wintry ways. 

Only the moon her mournful fires 
Enkindles, and a desolate light 
Falls where the autumn frosts are white 
Over my famishing desires. 

61 



LISTLESSNESS 


I sing the pale ballades of eld, 

Of kisses lost without reward, 

And lo, on love’s luxurious sward, 

The nuptials of the sick are held. 

Voices thro’ my slumber sound: 

Listlessly they gather near. 

Lilies bloom in closes where 
Star nor sun hath blessed the ground. 

And lo, these ghosts of old desire, 

These lagging throbs of impulse crost, 
Are paupers in a palace lost,. 

Sick tapers in the auroral fire. 

When shall the moon my vision bathe, 
That seeks to plumb the eternal streams 
Of darkness, and about my dreams 
Her slow cerulean raiment swathe? 

63 












AMEN 


At length the consecrating hour is here 
That sains the slave’s extenuated sleep. 

And I who wait shall see its hands appear, 
Full of white roses in these caverns deep. 

I wait — at length to feel its cooling wind 
Strike on my heart, impregnable to lies, 

A paschal lamb lost amid marshes blind, 
A wound o’er which the surging waters 
rise. 

I wait — for nights no morrow shall defy, 

I wait — for weakness nothing shall 
avail ; 

To feel upon my hands its shadow lie, 

To see in peaceful tides its image pale. 


65 


Amen 


I wait until those nights of thine shall show 
All my desires with cleansed eyes go by; 
For then my dreams shall bathe in evening’s 
glow, 

And then within their crystal castle die. 


66 


THE DIVING-BELL 


Lo, the diver, forever within his bell! 

And a whole sea of glass, a sea eternally 
warm ! 

A whole motionless world, a world of slow 
green rhythms! 

So many curious creatures beyond those 
walls of glass, 

And any contact eternally prohibited! 

And yet there is so much life in those bright 
waters yonder! 

Look! The shadows of great sailing-ships 
— they glide over the flowers, the dah- 
lias of the submarine forest! 

And I stand for a moment in the shadow of 
whales that are voyaging to the Pole ! 


67 


The Diving-bell 

And at this very moment, I doubt not, my 
fellow-men in the harbour 

Are discharging the vessels that sail 
hither laden with ice : 

A glacier was there, in the midst of the July 
meadows ! 

And men are swimming and floating in the 
green waters of the creek, 

And at noon they enter shadowy cav- 
erns . . . 

And the breezes of ocean are fanning the 
roofs and balconies. 

Lo, the flaming tongues of the Gulf- 
Stream ! 

Take heed lest their kisses touch the walls 
of lassitude ! 

They have ceased to lay ice on the brows 
of the fevered 

And the patients have lit a bonfire 

And are casting great handfuls of green 
lilies into the flames ! 


68 


The Diving-bell 

Lean your brows upon the cooler panes, 

While waiting for the moonlight to enter 
the bell from above. 

And close your eyes tightly, to the forest 
of colour, 

The pendulous blues and albuminous violets. 

And close your ears to the suggestions of 
the tepid water. 

Dry the brows of your desires; they are 
weak with sweat. 

Go firstly to those on the point of swooning. 

They have the air of people celebrating a 
wedding in a dungeon, 

Or of people entering, at mid-day, a long 
lamp-lit avenue underground, 

In festival procession they are passing 

Thro’ a landscape like an orphaned child- 
hood. 


69 


The Diving-bell 

Go now to those about to die : 

They move like virgins who have wandered 
far 

In the sun, on a day of fast, 

They are pale as patients who placidly listen 
to the rain in the gardens of the 
hospital ; 

They have the look of survivors, breaking 
their fast on a battle-field; 

They are like prisoners who know that all 
their gaolers are bathing in the river, 

And who hear men mowing the grass in the 
garden of the prison. 


70 


AQUARIUM 

Now my desires no more, alas, 

Summon my soul to my eyelids’ brink, 
For with its prayers that ebb and pass 
It too must sink, 

To lie in the depth of my closed eyes; 

Only the flowers of its weary breath 
Like icy blooms to the surface rise, 

Lilies of death. 

Its lips are sealed, in the depths of woe, 
And a world away, in the far-off gloom, 
They sing of azure stems that grow 
A mystic bloom. 

But, lo, its fingers — I have grown 

Pallid beholding them, I who perceive 
Them trace the marks its poor unblown 
Lost lilies leave. 


71 


Aquarium 

And I know it must die, for its hour is o’er 
Folding its impotent hands at last, 
Hands too weary to pluck any more 
The flowers of the past ! 


7S 


THE BURNING-GLASS 


I watch the hours of long ago : 

Their blue and secret depths I set 
Under the burning-glass, Regret, 

And watch a happier flora blow. 

Hold up the glass o’er my desires ! 

Behold them through my soul, a glass! 
At memory’s touch the withered grass 
Breaks forth into devouring fires. 

Now above my thoughts I hold 
The azure crystal, in whose heart 
Suddenly unfolding start 
The leaves of agonies borne of old, 

Until those nights remote I see 
Even to memory dead so long 
That their sullen tears do wrong 
To the green soul of hopes to be. 


73 



REFLECTIONS 


Under the brimming tide of dreams, 
O, my soul is full of fear ! 

In my heart the moon is clear; 
Deep it lies in the tide of dreams. 

Under the listless reeds asleep, 
Only the deep reflection shows 
Of palm, of lily and of rose, 
Weeping yet in the waters deep. 

And the flowers, late and soon, 

Fall upon the mirrored sky, 

To sink and sink eternally 
Thro’ dreamy waters and the moon. 


75 
















If 


VISIONS 


All the tears that I have shed, 

All my kisses, lo, they pass 
Thro’ my mind as in a glass: 

All my kisses whose joy is dead. 

There are flowers without a hue, 

Lilies that under the moonlight fade, 
Moonlight over the meadows laid, 

Fountains far on the sky-line blue. 

Weary and heavy with slumber I 
See thro’ the lids that slumber closes 
Crows that gather amid the roses, 

Sick folk under a sunbright sky. 

Of these vague loves the weary smart 
Shines unchanging, late and soon, 
Like a pale slow-moving moon 

Sadly into my indolent heart. # 


77 




PRAYER 


Thou know’st, O Lord, my spirit’s dearth : 

Thou see’st the worth of what I bring: 
The evil blossoms of the earth, 

The light upon a perished thing. 

Thou see’st my sick and weary mood: 

The moon is dark, the dawn is slain. 
Thy glory on my solitude 

Shed Thou like fructifying rain. 

Light Thou, O Lord, beneath my feet 
The way my weary soul should pass, 
For now the pain of all things sweet 
Is piteous as the ice-bound grass. 


79 



/ 



* 


GLANCES 


O, all these poor weary glances ! 

And yours, and mine ! 

And those that are no more, and those 
to be! 

And those that will never be, and yet exist ! 

There are those that seem to visit the poor 
on a Sabbath; 

There are some like sick folk who are 
houseless, 

There are some like lambs in a meadow full 
of bleaching linen, 

And O, these strange unwonted glances ! 

Under the vaults of some we behold 

A maiden being put to death in a chamber 
with closed doors. 

And some make us dream of unknown 
sorrows, 

Of peasants at the windows of a factory, 

81 


Glances 


Of a gardener turned weaver, 

Of a summer afternoon in a wax-work 
show, 

Of the thoughts of a queen on beholding 
a sick man in a garden, 

Of an odour of camphor in the forest, 

Of a princess locked in a tower on a day 
of rejoicing, 

Of men sailing all the week on the stagnant 
waters of a canal. 

Have pity on those that come creeping 
forth like convalescents at harvest- 
tide ! 

Have pity on those that have the air of 
children who have lost their way at 
supper-time ! 

Have pity on the glances of the wounded 
man at the surgeon, 

Like tents stricken by a hurricane ! 


Glances 

Have pity on the glances of the virgin 
tempted ! 

(Rivers of milk are flowing away in the 
darkness, 

And the swans have died in the midst of 
serpents !) 

And the gaze of the virgin who surrenders ! 

Princesses deserted in swamps that have no 
issue, 

And those eyes in which you may see ships 
in full sail, lit up by flashes of the 
storm ! 

And how pitiful are all those glances which 
suffer because they are not elsewhere ! 

And so much suffering, so indistinguishable 
and yet so various ! 

And those glances that no one will ever un- 
derstand ! 

And those poor glances which are all but 
dumb ! 

^.nd those poor whispering glances ! 

And those poor stifled glances ! 

83 


Glances 


Amid some of these you might think your- 
self in a mansion serving as hospital, 
And many others have the air of tents, lilies 
of war, on the little lawn of the con- 
vent ! 

And many others have the air of wounded 
men tended in a hot-house ! 

Or Sisters of Charity on an ocean devoid 
of patients. 

Oh, to have encountered all these glances, 
To have admitted them all, 

And to have exhausted mine thereby ! 

And henceforth to be unable to close mine 
eyes ! 


84 


VIGIL 


My soul her unused hands to pray 
Folds, that hide the world away: 

Lord, my broken dreams complete, 

That Thine angels’ lips repeat. 

While beneath my wearied eyes 

She breathes the prayers that in her rise — 

Prayers that find my lids a tomb, 

And whose lilies may not bloom: 

While in dreams her barren breast 
Hushes ’neath my gaze to rest — 

Still her eyes from perils cower, 

Such as wake by falsehood’s power. 


85 




AFTERNOON 


Mine eyes have snared my soul. But O, 
Grant me, O Lord, my one desire : 

Let fall Thy leaves upon the snow, 

Let fall Thy rain upon the fire. 

The sun upon my pillow plays, 

The self-same hours they sound again, 

And always falls my questing gaze 
On dying men that harvest grain. 

My hands they pluck the withered grass, 
Mine eyes with sleep are all undone, 

Are sick folk in a springless pass, 

Or flowers of darkness in the sun. 

When will my dreams unchanging know 
The rain, and when the meadows brown? 

— Along the far horizon, lo, 

The lambs are herded toward the town. 

87 


THE SOUL 

Dreams within mine eyes remain, 

And beneath its crystal dome 
Lights my soul its somewhile home, 
Taps upon the azure pane. 

Houses of the listless soul ! 

Up the panes the lilies creep ; 

Reeds unfold in waters deep, 

Longings nought shall e’er make whole ! 

Closing eyes it all but seems 
Past oblivion I could hold 
All the rosy flowers of old 
Of my half-remembered dreams : 

Their leaves are dead and scattered far; 
Shall I not see them verdant soon 
When with her azure hands the moon 
In silence sets the gates ajar? 

89 



INTENTIONS 

Have pity on the eyes morose 

Wherein the soul its hope reveals; 

On fated things that ne’er unclose, 

And all who wait what night conceals. 

Ripples that rock the spirit’s lake ! 

Lilies that sway beneath the tide 
To threads the eternal rhythms shake! 

O powers that close to vision hide ! 

Behold, O Lord, unwonted flowers 
Among the water-lilies white ! 

Dim hands of Thine angelic powers 
Trouble the waters of my sight: 

At mystic signs the buds unroll, 

Shed on the waters from the skies, 

And as the swans take flight my soul 
Spreads the white pinions of its eyes. 
91 







CONTACTS 


The sense of contact ! 

Darkness lies between your fingers ! 

The cries of brazen instruments in a tem- 
pest ! 

The music of organs in the sunlight ! 

All the flocks of the soul in the depths of a 
night of eclipse ! 

All the salt of the sea on the grass of the 
meadows ! 

And the blaze of blue lightning on every 
horizon ! 

(Have pity on this human sense!) 

But O these sadder, wearier contacts ! 

0 the touch of your poor moist hands ! 

1 hear your pure fingers as they glide be- 

tween mine, 


93 


Contacts 

And flocks of lambs are departing by moon- 
light 

Along the banks of a misty river. 

I can remember all the hands that have 
touched my hands, 

And again I see all that was protected by 
those hands, 

And I see to-day what I was, protected by 
those cool hands. 

I was often the beggar who gnaws his crust 
on the steps of a throne. 

I was sometimes the diver, who no longer 
can evade the surging waters ! 

I was often a whole people no longer able 
to escape from the town ! 

And some hands were like a convent with- 
out a garden ! 

And some confined me like a group of in- 
valids in a glass-house on a rainy day ! 


94 


Contacts 


Until other cooler hands should come to set 
the doors ajar, 

And sprinkle a little water upon the 
threshold ! 


O, I have known strange contacts, 

And here they surround me forever ! 

Some were wont to give alms on a day of 
sunshine, 


Some gathered a harvest in the depths of a 
cavern, 

And the music of mountebanks was heard 
outside the prison. 

There were wax-work figures in the summer 
woods, 

And elsewhere the moon had swept the 
whole oasis, 

And at times I found a virgin, flushed and 
sweating, in a grotto of ice ! 


95 


Contacts 


Pity these strange hands ! 

These hands contain the secrets of all the 
kings ! 

Pity these hands too pale ! 

They seem to have emerged from the cav- 
erns of the moon ! 

They are worn with spinning threads from 
the distaffs of fountains ! 

Pity these hands, too white, too moist ! 

They are like princesses that slumber at 
noon all the summer through. 

Avoid these hard, harsh hands ! 

They seem to have issued from the rocks! 

But pity these cold hands ! 

I see a heart bleeding under ribs of ice ! 

And O, have pity on these evil hands, 

For these have poisoned the springs ! 

They have set young cygnets in a nest of 
hemlock ! 


96 


Contacts 

I have seen the angels of evil open the gates 
at noon! 

Here are only madmen on a pestilent river ! 

Here are black sheep only in starless pas- 
tures ! 

And lambs hasting away to graze in dark- 
ness ! 

But O these cool faithful hands ! 

They come to offer ripe fruits to the dying ! 

They bring clear cold water in their palms ! 

They water the battlefields with milk ! 

They have surely come from wonderful and 
eternally virgin forests ! 


97 


t 


NIGHT 


My soul is sick at the end of all, 

Sick and sad, being weary too, 

Weary of being so vain, so vain, 
Weary and sad at the end of all, 

And O I long for the touch of you ! 

I long for your hands upon my face ; 
Snow-cold as spirits they will be ; 

I wait until they bring the ring. 

I wait for their coolness over my face 
Like a treasure deep in the sea. 

I wait to know their healing spell, 

Lest in the desolate sun I die, 

So that I die not out in the sun ; 

O bathe mine eyes and make them well, 
Where things unhappy slumbering lie. 


99 


Night 

Where many swans upon the sea, 

Swans that wander over the sea, 

Stretch forth their mournful throats in 
vain; 

In wintry gardens by the sea ^ 

Sick men pluck roses in their pain. 

I long for your hands upon my face ; 
Snow-cold as spirits they will be, 

And soothe my aching sight, alas ! 

My vision like the withered grass 
Where listless lambs irresolute pass! 


IOO 


FIFTEEN SONGS 




Fifteen Songs 


I 

She chained her in a cavern frore; 

She set a sign upon the door. 

The key into the ocean fell : 

The maid forgot the lamp as well. 

She waited for the days of spring; 

Year by year did seven die, 

And every year one passed her by. 

She waited thro’ the winter’s cold, 

And her tresses, waiting too, 

Recalled the light that once they knew. 

They sought the light, they found it out, 
Crept thro’ the rocks and round about, 
And lit the rocks with all their gold. 

He comes at eve that passed of old; 
Amazed at the wondrous sight, 

He does not dare approach the light. 


103 


Fifteen Songs 

He deems it is a mystic sign, 

Or else a spring that gushes gold, 
Or angels at their sport divine: 
He turns, and passes as of old. 


104 


Fifteen Songs 


II 

If he one day come again, 

What shall then be said? 

— Say that one awaited him, 

Always, that is dead. 

Ay, but if he ask me more, 

Yet know me not again? 

— Speak as any sister might, 

Lest he be in pain. 

If he ask where you are gone, 

What shall I reply? 

— Give him then my golden ring, 
Make him no reply. 

If he ask me why the hall 
Shows a silent floor? 

— Show him then the smouldered lamp 
And the open door. 


Fifteen Songs 

If he ask me of the hour 
When you fell asleep? 

- — Tell him, tell him that I smiled 
Lest my love should weep. 


106 


Fifteen Songs 


III 

Three little maids they have done to death, 
To see what hid within their hearts. 

The first little heart was full of bliss, 

And lo, wherever its blood might run, 
Three serpents hissed till three years were 
done. 

The second was full of gentlehood, 

And lo, wherever its blood might run 
Three lambs that fed till three years were 
done. 

The third was full of pain and woe, 

And lo, wherever the red blood crept 
Archangels three their vigil kept. 


107 



Fifteen Songs 


IV 

Maidens with bounden eyes 

(O loose the scarves of gold!) — 
Maidens with bounden eyes, 

They sought their destinies. 

At noon they opened wide 

(O keep the scarves of gold!) — 

At noon they opened wide 
The palace of the plain : 

There they greeted life 

( Bind close the scarves of gold ! ) — 
There they greeted life, 

And turned them back again. 


109 





Fifteen Songs 


V 

The three blind sisters, 
(Hope is not cold) 

The three blind sisters 
Light their lamps of gold. 

Up the tower go they, 
(They and you and we) 
Up the tower go they 
To wait the seventh day. 

Ah, saith one, turning, 
(Still let us hope) 

Ah, saith one, turning, 

I hear our lamps burning. 

Ah, the second saith, 
(They and you and we) 
Ah, the second saith, 

’Tis the king’s tread. . . 


Fifteen Songs 

Nay, the holiest saith, 
(Still let us hope) 

Nay, the holiest saith, 
But our light is dead. 


112 


Fifteen Songs 


VI 

There came one here to say, 

(O child, I am afraid!) 

There came one here to say 
’Twas time to haste away. . . . 

A burning lamp I bore, 

(O child, I am afraid!) 

A burning lamp I bore, 

And went upon my way ! 

At the first door, 

(O child, I am afraid!) 

At the first door 

The flame shook sore. . . . 

Then, at the second, 

(O child, I am afraid!) 

Then, at the second, 

The flame spoke and beckoned. . 


Fifteen Songs 

The third door is wide, 

(O child, but this is fear!) 
The third door is wide, 
And the flame has died! 


1 14 


Fifteen Songs 


VII 

Orlamonde had seven daughters: 

When the fairy died 
The seven maids, the seven daughters, 
Sought to win outside. 

Then they lit their seven lamps; 

Through all the towers they sought; 
They opened full four hundred chambers; 
The day, they found it not. 

They came to the echoing caverns deep; 

Down, tho’ the air was cold, 

They went, and in a stubborn door 
Found a key of gold. 

They see the ocean through the chinks; 

They fear to die outside; 

They beat on the unmoving door 
They dare not open wide. 






Fifteen Songs 


VIII 

She had three crowns of gold: 

To whom did she give the three? 

One she gave to her parents dear, 

And they have bought three reeds of gold, 
And kept her till the spring was near. 

And one to those that loved her well : 

And they have bought three nets of gold, 
And kept her till the autumn fell. 

And one she gave to those she bore, 

And they have bought three gyves of iron, 
To chain her till the winter’s o’er. 



Fifteen Songs 


IX 

Toward the castle she made her way, 
(Hardly yet was the sun on the sea) 
Toward the castle she made her way; 
Knight looked at knight and looked away ; 
The women had never a word to say. 

She came to rest before the door, 

(Hardly yet was the sun on the sea) 

She came to rest before the door; 

They heard the queen as she paced the 
floor, 

And the king that asked her what would 
she. 

“What do you seek, O where do you go? 
(Have a care, it is hard to see) 

What do you seek, O where do you go ? 
Doth one await you there below?’* 

But never a word, a word spake she. 


Fifteen Songs 

Down she went to the one unknown, 
(Have a care, it is hard to see) 

Down she went to the one unknown, 

And round the queen her arms were 
thrown ; 

Never a word did either say; 

Without a word they went their way. 

The king wept by the open door, 

(Have a care, it is hard to see) 

The king wept by the open door; 

They heard the footsteps of the queen, 
And the fall of the leaves where she had 
been. 


120 


Fifteen Songs 


X 

Her lover went his way, 
(I heard the gate) 

Her lover went his way, 
Yet she was gay. 

When he came again, 

(I heard the lamp) 

When he came again, 
Another made the twain. 

And the dead I met, 

(I heard her spirit cry) 
And the dead I met, 

She who waits him yet. 


121 


I 


Fifteen Songs 


XI 

Mother, mother, do you not hear? 
Mother, they come; there is news to tell! 
— Give me your hands, my daughter dear: 
’Tis but a ship that saileth well. 

Mother dear, have a care, give heed! 

— They go, my daughter, away they speed. 
Mother, the danger is sore, alas ! 

— Child, my child, it will quickly pass. 

Mother, mother, She draweth near ! 

— It is down in the harbour, daughter dear. 
Mother, mother, She opens the door ! 

— Child, they go, to return no more. 

Mother, She enters! I am afraid! 

— Child, they now have the anchor 
weighed. 

Mother, I hear Her speaking low. 

— Child, my child, it is they that go. 


123 


Fifteen Songs 

Mother, She makes the stars go dark ! 

— Child, ’tis the sails of a shadowy bark. 
Mother, She knocks at the casement still ! 
— Child, maybe it is fastened ill. . . . 

Mother, mother, my sight grows dim. . . . 
— Child, they sail for the open sea. 

On every hand I can hear but Him. . . . 
— O child, what is it, and who is He ? 


124 


Fifteen Songs 


XII 

Now your lamps are all alight, 

The sun’s in the garden on every side — 
Now your lamps are all alight; 

The sun through every chink is bright : 
Open the doors on the garden wide ! 

The keys of the doors are lost one and all, 
We must be patient whate’er befall; 

The keys they fell from the tower on high. 
We must be patient whate’er befall, 

Wait and wait as the days go by. 

The days to be will open the doors. 

The keys are safe in the forest wide. 

The forest blazes on every side ; 

The light of the dying leafage pours 
Blazing bright beneath the doors. 


125 


Fifteen Songs 

The days to be already ail, 

The days to be they fear and fail, 
The days to be will never come ; 
For day by day will die as we, 
Even as we, in this our tomb. 


126 


Fifteen Songs 


XIII 

Sisters, sisters, thirty years 
I sought where he might be; 
Thirty years I sought for him : 
Never did I see. 

Thirty years the way I trod; 

Long the road and hot ; 
Sisters, he was everywhere, 

He who yet is not. 

Sisters, sad the hour and late. 

My sandal’s thongs unpick. 
Even as I the evening dies, 

And my soul is sick. 

You whose years are seventeen, 
Forth and seek him too; 
Sisters, sisters, take my staff, 
Seek the whole world through. 


127 



/ 







Fifteen Songs 


XIV 

There were three sisters fain to die ! 

Her crown of gold each putteth on, 

And forth to seek their death they’re gone. 

They wandered to the forest forth : 

“Give us our death, O forest old, 

For here are our three crowns of gold.” 

The forest broke into a smile, 

And kisses gave to each twice twain, 

That showed them all the future plain. 

There were three sisters fain to die : 

They wandered forth to seek the sea : 
They found it after summers three. 

“Give us our death, thou ocean old, 

For here are our three crowns of gold.” 

Then the ocean began to weep : 

Three hundred kisses it gave the three, 
And all the past was plain to see. 


129 


Fifteen Songs 

There were three sisters fain to die : 

To find the city they sought awhile; 
They found it midmost of an isle. 

“Give us our death, thou city old, 

For here are our three crowns of gold.” 

The city opened then and there, 

And covered them with kisses dear 
That showed them all the present clear. 


130 


Fifteen Songs 


XV 

Canticle of the Virgin in “Sister 
Beatrice” 1 

I hold, to every sin, 

To every soul that weeps, 

My hands with pardon filled 
Out of the starry deeps. 

No sin is there that lives 
When love hath vigil kept; 

No soul is there that mourns 
When love but once hath wept. 

And tho’ on many paths 
Of earth love lose its way, 

Its tears will find me out 
And shall not go astray. 


x First published in “Sister Beatrice,” the English 
version of which, by the present translator, was pub- 
lished, with “Ardiane and Barbe Bleue,” by the pres- 
ent publishers, in 1902. 





